Success Strategies from High-Poverty, High-Achieving Schools

How do some schools in high-poverty communities produce remarkable stories of success while others fail? How can we implement strategies that enabled their success in other schools across the country?

In this webinar, Public Agenda’s President Will Friedman, Ph.D., and Director of Research Carolin Hagelskamp, Ph.D., share findings from our 2013 report “Failure Is Not an Option.” They explore some of the characteristics and practices of nine schools that beat the odds and overcame tight budgets, restrictive labor agreements and poverty to earn distinctions of excellence from the state of Ohio.

The webinar also includes information about the Success for All program, a whole-school reform strategy that uses data to inform instruction. Cofounder and Chairman of the Success for All Foundation Robert Slavin, Ph.D., and Cofounder, President and CEO of the Success for All Foundation Nancy Madden, Ph.D., discuss how education leaders can implement Success for All in their own schools and districts.

The webinar concludes with a story from Marjorie Radakovich, the principal of East Garfield Elementary School in Steubenville, Ohio, one of the schools featured in "Failure Is Not an Option." East Garfield has spent 5 years as a School of Promise. Eighty-seven percent of the student body comes from an economically disadvantaged background and a quarter of students have a disability.

Opportunities for Further Research and Engagement

Public Agenda can help you tell the story of what success looks like in your district or state. While additional research may not reveal groundbreaking new information, we have found that exploring and describing these stories of success can give your community something to celebrate and rejuvenate the reform dialogue.

Research on unexpectedly high-achieving schools also opens up additional questions to explore: What are the varied pathways to success? How are these principles implemented? And, most importantly, how are they sustained? We can help explore these questions in your community.

Furthermore, through decades of work, Public Agenda has found that school transformation is best addressed by including all of the many stakeholders in planning and decision making. If you’d like to speak about how to engage principals, teachers, students, parents and concerned community members in meaningful dialogue about school reform, contact us.

If you have additional questions about Public Agenda or are interested in exploring ways to address questions on the varied pathways to success, please contact: